Dissident Voice

June
27, 2003

“Broadcast
excellence” on talk radio dripped ill will after the Supreme Court gave a nod
to affirmative action in public higher education.Callers and host carped that the justices had thrown away equal
opportunity in favor of diversity.

But
one expects to hear only that view on a Clear Channel Communications radio
station.Sadly, another thing was
expected, and delivered.

That
is white animus towards government intervention for black, brown and red
Americans.It runs deep in 2003.

Against
that backdrop, the Federal Communications Commission recently intervened to
help corporations such as Clear Channel, which owns over 1,200 radio stations
across America, grow even larger.Michael Powell, FCC chair, led the charge to make big media live larger
than it already does.

In
the meantime on a Clear Channel station following the affirmative action
ruling, one heard that “those people” should be forced to compete like
everybody else.Why can’t “they” play
by the rules like others do?

One
wonders if these rules include the affirmative action program for locking up
black Americans.They number half of
the nation’s incarcerated population of two million.

Yet
about every eighth person is black nationwide.Do the math.

Political
circles of power have in the past tapped into white resentment towards
affirmative action and nonwhite people generally.In contrast, President George W. Bush took a decidedly new tack,
avoiding race-baiting entirely.

He
backed the justices’ ruling.Presumably, Bush’s stance will help to pave the way for more nonwhite
university graduates such as Michael Powell and his father Colin, U.S.
secretary of state, to eventually hold leadership positions in the GOP.

High-level
blacks such as the Powell can legitimize the Republicans’ policies to critics
at home and abroad.This is a race
strategy policy to boost the class power of those who run the U.S., the lone
super power now.

Speaking
of political policy, U.S. big business lobbied the court to back affirmative
action, the Financial Times reported.Corporate America wanted what one of the paper’s reporters called
“positive discrimination.”

As,
in turn, did the Supreme Court.“Student body diversity is a compelling state interest that can justify
using race in university admissions,” wrote Justice Sandra Day O’Connor for the
majority.

Yet
the court ruling is significant in part for what it doesn’t address.I mean the racist structure of the U.S.
social system, as author and historian Manning Marable has noted.

Thus
the barrio/ghetto/reservation poor will remain excluded from white

society,
the mainstream ebb and flow of commerce.Regrettably, many white Americans don’t act as if their countrymen with
darker skin tones mired in poverty are worthy of much more.

Sidestepping
the big roles of racism and white supremacy in the U.S. encourages each to
continue festering.Affirmative action
is a key policy that can mend but not end this tendency.

Seth Sandronsky is a member of
Sacramento/Yolo Peace Action, and an editor with Because People Matter,
Sacramento's progressive newspaper. Email: ssandron@hotmail.com